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eBook Category: Business
eBook Description: Lessons for Everyone in Business from an All-Star Team. Every six months Dennis C. Carey and Marie-Caroline von Weichs run the CEO Academy, an immersion course for newly appointed CEOs of the world's leading companies--what Business Week called a "boot camp" for the next class of top executives. Those attending get a priceless range of unvarnished advice and invaluable lessons from an all-star team of veteran CEOs about how to get the results they were hired to achieve. What participants pay $10,000 to hear is now contained in this book, the insights and secrets of some of the most influential business leaders of our time. Here is advice from high-caliber businesspeople such as Larry Bossidy, the recently retired CEO of Honeywell International; Ray Gilmartin, the CEO of Merck; John Smale, the former chairman of General Motors and retired chairman and CEO of Procter & Gamble; and John Dasburg, who has run Northwest Airlines, Burger King, and now DHL Airways. Successful CEOs aren't the only attraction. How to Run a Company also presents America's leading business observers and watchdogs: Nell Minow, the shareholder rights activist; Ira Millstein, the legendary attorney and power broker; Matthew Bishop, business editor of The Economist; and Joseph Badaracco, Harvard Business School's top professor of ethics. The combined team offers original and revealing observations on how business leaders at the top of the corporate world tackle pressing challenges, such as:--How an industrial goliath like DuPont dramatically shifted its business focus--How The Home Depot changed from fast-growing, free-wheeling adolescence to the management discipline that will help it mature and continue to expand--What Michael Armstrong, who oversaw the transformation of Hughes Electronics and AT&T, advises to companies whose core business begins to disappear--How the CEO of Tyco moved quickly during his first 100 days to build a new senior management team and began to restore trust in a company battered by scandal and bad publicity--The role of the board of directors and how corporate governance should be reformed--What strategies Jack Welch's investor relations team at GE used to constantly probe who was buying the stock, who wasn't, and why How to Run a Company is not just for CEOs, but anyone interested in the critical make-or-break factors in today's ever-challenging business environment. As the demands and expectations in business become ever greater and the competition tougher, here in one volume is the accumulated wisdom and experience of people who have been in the trenches during a remarkable time. How to Run a Company is the success manual for the twenty-first century.

eBook Publisher: Random House, Inc./Crown Business, Published: 2003
Fictionwise Release Date: October 2003

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Microsoft Reader ISBN: 9781400052301
Adobe Reader ISBN: 9781400052301
Mobipocket Reader ISBN: 9781400052301
eReader ISBN: 9781400052301
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Raymond V. Gilmartin, chairman and CEO of Merck & Co.

Raymond V. Gilmartin has worked in the healthcare industry for more than twenty-five years. He has been chief executive of both the medical device manufacturer Becton Dickinson and, since 1994, the drug giant Merck. During his tenure, the industry has faced dramatic changes and challenges, including the introduction of managed care, budget constraints, and remarkable innovation. These developments have presented several different strategic options for drug companies, and pharmaceutical executives have had to set clear direction for their companies.

Gilmartin has had the advantage of watching these industry changes from two key but very different leadership experiences. At Becton Dickinson, he was an insider who rose through the ranks to become CEO. At Merck, he was recruited from the outside and arrived at the job with a stellar record as an industry CEO. Unlike some corporate leaders who parachute into a position, Gilmartin did not launch wholesale changes among Merck's senior management team. Instead, he established a very flat and open organization structure and helped reassert the company's reputation as a leader in breakthrough research. In recent years, Merck has been included on Fortune's list of the most admired global companies and the 100 best companies to work for.

WHEN A FORMER Harvard Business School professor learned that I was leaving the CEO job at Becton Dickinson to become CEO of Merck, he told me I now had a second chance to do it right. His forecast was accurate. I had an advantage my second time around--the advantage of being an outsider.

As it happened, I had a rewarding and successful career at Becton Dickinson. I had joined the company in 1976 as vice president of strategic planning. Over time, I moved up through various line positions until I became president and CEO thirteen years later. During my tenure the company grew, our stock price did well against the S&P 500, and, having groomed a successor, I felt comfortable moving to a new company.

But my experience at Becton had been strictly that of the insider. One of the most important things I learned at Merck is how valuable it is to approach corporate issues from an outside perspective. In fact, that makes sense even for a CEO who has been promoted from within the company. Becoming CEO is an opportunity to step back and take a good look at the company, even if you think you know it well.

Nineteen ninety-four, the year I arrived at Merck, turned out to be a pivotal year for the pharmaceutical industry. In many respects, the industry was in turmoil. President Clinton had proposed a far-reaching health-care plan that many observers believed would lead to government-imposed price controls on prescription drugs. Stock prices across the industry were depressed. Managed care had also emerged in the early nineties, and it was clear that, one way or another, it would have an impact on the drug business.

Merck, too, was going through a period of uncertainty. The company had developed only a few new drugs in the early 1990s, and some questioned the company's commitment to research. The year before I arrived, Merck had acquired Medco, the pharmacy benefit manager, which suggested a change in direction for the company. Many at Merck wondered what the future held.

A new CEO is expected to make changes, often dramatic changes. Given the industry environment, I suspect that's what many expected from me at Merck. But I believe that before any changes can be introduced, a new CEO has to take a close look at three constituencies within the first six...